“One question only—why then did you treat my grandson so badly? A shameful thing it is to be a flirt.”

“I am not a flirt, madame. And I did not treat your grandson badly. No, indeed!”

“Yes, indeed! He told me so himself.”

“He told you so?”

“He told me so. Surely he did.”

“That I treated him badly?”

“Pray then what else? You let a young man love you—you let him tell you so—you tell him ‘yes, I love you’ and then when he says marry me, you say, ‘no.’ Such ways I call bad, very bad! Not worthy of my Joris are you, and so then, I am glad you said ‘no.’”

“I do not understand you.”

“Neither did you understand my Joris—a great mistake he made—and he did not understand you; and I do not understand such ways of the girls of this day. They are shameless, and I am ashamed for you.”

“Madame, you are very rude.”